Q&A: Let's talk about sales

I have been talking a lot recently about the Jerard Lee vs Timetric case of late and clearly it is something people are interested to read about - the figures speak for themselves. Traffic to my blog has tripled since I've started writing about what I thought was a curious but obscure case. What do you know, eh? I have many years of experience in financial sales in an environment not dissimilar to that of Timetric's whilst many of the people on the forums have never worked in sales. Some of them are in school or NS and have never ever worked before. I have created a Q&A about sales loosely based around the Jerard Lee case to show case it to my readers who are unfamiliar with the profession.

Q: Is there a lot of bullying in sales? Are tyrant like sales managers or directors common, forcing you to meet your targets, shouting abuse at you if you're not selling enough?

A: I think you're focussing on one half of the equation - I would describe it terms of carrot-and-stick. There are great rewards for those who can sell and the "abuse" is usually reserved for those who cannot sell. Like I have mentioned before, sales managers usually run competitions to motivate their staff - for example, I have taken part in competitions before where the top sales person can win an a luxury holiday in a beautiful resort in the south of France for two. Flights, hotel, all included and they threw in 1000 Euros in spending money for you go to shopping there, go to nice restaurants or blow it at the casino. There would be different prizes every month, all equally extravagant and desirable. It was designed to appeal to your sense of greed.

Of course, those of us who were top salesmen were already earning a lot of money through commissions - it was crazy money and for those of us who could sell, it did feel like easy money. And then there were those who couldn't sell and they suffered a lot under pushy sales managers who were trying to get them to sell. It was a terrible mismatch of talents I would say - some of these people were not stupid per se, but it takes a certain kind of character to be a good salesman.

Q: For those who couldn't sell, what kind of 'bullying' have you observed?

A: It is not bullying per se, I wouldn't use that word, but sure they were under a lot of stress when they could not meet their targets. Then again, these targets were usually set very high so most people would not reach them and would have something to aspire to - and once you've reached your target, they will raise it again so it is once again out of your reach. It is like a personal trainer who keeps increasing the speed of your thread mill as you are jogging on it. Once you think you're able to keep up at a comfortable pace, the personal trainer turns it up a notch and you're struggling again. It is a highly stressful job, but it also brings great monetary rewards for those who do succeed.

Just to use the case of Jerard Lee for an example, Amit Patel was his line manager and don't forget Amit would have a boss too. Amit's boss (Ruben Kempeneer) would give Amit hell if Amit had someone on his team who wasn't performing well enough. Ruben would give Amit pressure to make Jerard perform well and in turn, that pressure would be passed down the food chain. Someone like Amit is but middle management and they are under a lot of pressure both from bosses who are demanding and staff who simply don't want to be managed - it is a very difficult job. I have been given the opportunity to manage people myself in the past and I hated it - it was a highly frustrating job.

It can be very stressful to work in sales.

Q: Why was it such a frustrating experience?

A: Some of us are just not natural teachers. There is an element of teaching to management - okay, if you are managing someone who's performing super well, then you don't need to do anything, you just give them a pat on the back and say 'well done, good job'. But if you're managing someone who can't bloody sell... There's a saying I heard once, "He couldn't sell water to a man dying of thirst" - that was used to describe a failing salesman. When you get someone like that, you have to take them back to basics and teach them how to sell and that's when you have to play the role of a teacher.

I am not a natural teacher - it's like I am very good at gymnastics and was a former national champion gymnast of Singapore back in the 1990s. But I am not a good gymnastics coach as it all seems so easy for me to do say a Tsukhara vault (see the video below - yes of course that is me in the video), I don't even need to think, it is all instinct to me. But when you want me to teach someone how to do it, then I'm like, oh gee, I have to explain it? Likewise, I had a maths teacher at school who was undoubtedly brilliant at the subject but he simply couldn't communicate the subject to the students and it was a frustrating experience for me as a student trying to learn from this teacher. To him, it all just made sense, it was so obvious, so easy and he would stare at the class like, why are you all so stupid? Why don't you get it?

I was good at selling because I had my own methods and technique to sell - it sounds like a cliche but it is true, I did it my way. No two successful sales people will have the same technique and I used a mixture of my personality and my language skills; unless you also speak 10 languages, I can't teach you to do what I do to get my kind of results. So it was frustrating, for example, for me to deal with someone who could only say speak 2 languages and like my former maths teacher, I would look at them like, what is wrong with your brain? Why are you so crap with languages, are you stupid or what? Like why aren't you fluent in at least a few more languages? I get impatient with people like that easily, so I am a bad manager. I don't want to manage people, I want to be left on my own to work and have as much autonomy as I want - leave me the hell alone and I will deliver results at the end of the day.

Q: Did you ever get bullied when you worked in sales?

A: I would not use the word bullied - but I have been in stressful situations when I felt the pressure to meet my sales targets. When I met my sales targets, I was making great money, I was a happy man. But when I didn't, I would dread the MD breathing down my neck, summoning me into his office for a 'chat'. I hate being managed and I didn't want to give the MD any excuse to summon me into his office - so I put a lot of pressure on myself to sell and when deals fell through, I got upset, frustrated... It was the same for everyone else in that position - there were good times and tough times.

I put a lot of pressure on myself to perform well at work.

What I really hated about sales was dishonest behaviour - this is very different from bullying. People would steal deals from each other. There was a lot of back stabbing going on, the management usually didn't care if people got competitive in an ugly way because they thought it was healthy competition. It was like swimming in a sea of sharks - you had to be very careful with those you had to work with, you never quite knew whom you could trust.

I have seen all kinds of nasty things going on - people sabotaging each other just to get ahead and win the competitions. But that's what people would do for money and whilst it was easy to make a lot of money, you also had to prepare to work with a lot of nasty, unscrupulous people and you cannot expect the management to police all this. If you're not prepared to deal with this, then you're in the wrong job. It was extreme office politics,you had to watch your back all the time.

Q: What kind of progression was there for someone in sales?

A: There are two ways to progress. The first way is to do what Amit Patel did - move up into management. If you prove that you're an expert at selling your company's product, you can then start to teach others how to sell and like I said before, you need to be a gifted teacher in order to do that role well. I can't do it, so I chose the other kind of progression - I sold more expensive products. I moved up the food chain in terms of the products I sold - higher value products means more revenue and bigger commissions to be earned. What Amit did is a lot harder than you think and also, it isn't as lucrative as simply selling more high value, expensive products.

Q: Gee, you make it sound like Amit had a bad deal - if it's harder work for less money, why do people like Amit move into management instead of simply doing what you did for more money?

A: One man's meat is another man's poison - we're all different individuals with different skills and talents. Managers like Amit not only do it well, they also enjoy it. I guess it is because I've always been an individual - I have been doing gymnastics all my life, that is an individual sport. You get into the gym, you train on your own and even if I had other gymnasts there, I tended to focussed on my training and ignored them. That's me, I am a lone wolf hunter. Whereas someone who grew up playing a team sport like football or basketball, they are far more experienced with teamwork and enjoy that kind of interaction with others. Many companies do recognize just how difficult the job of managers are so their pay often reflects this challenge.

Do you work well in a team?

Q: What is so difficult about the sales manager's job?

A: It depends - imagine if you were a teacher, your job would be super easy if your students are super smart and your job would be really difficult if your students are really struggling. In terms of sales, if a salesman is doing extremely well, the boss would just leave him alone and let him get on with making money. It is only those who are not doing very well who need management the most and they are often very hard to manage.

Q: Sounds like a job from hell - being sent in to manage a bunch of failing salesmen.

A: It's a tough job but someone has gotta do it. (See the video below.) And yes, that was very much the position Amit found himself in, it is a very hard job to do.

Q: Why not just sack the lot of them in the video above and just hire a bunch of people who are good at selling?

A: You have got to give people a chance to learn. I wasn't particularly good at my first year of selling, I only became quite good in my second year. It took me about a year before I thought, wow - I am actually quite good at this. My experience is pretty typical for people in sales - you need to get some decent experience before you become good at sales. You don't just waltz in on your first day and start selling like a superstar. Managers have the responsibility of identifying people who have potential and need training and also getting rid of those who are just not suitable for sales.

There is nothing you can learn at school or university to prepare you for a sales role - it is all about talking to people, relating to people, listening to people. Sure there is some product knowledge required but that's not as important as people skills. You can have crap product knowledge but great people skill and still somehow sell - but even if you have the best product knowledge in the world, without people skills, you won't sell anything. Some people just born blessed with these people skills - they are the popular kids at school who are well liked by those around them. I don't believe you can actually teach people such skills, it is like charm and beauty - you either have it or you don't. It has nothing to do with being smart or highly qualified.

Q: What kind of people do well in sales then?

A: You need a combination of intelligence and charm. Being good looking helps a lot if you are selling face to face and having to meet clients for sales presentations. Screw being PC about it, it is not like there is a penalty for being ugly... but you will get rewarded for being good looking. I know this sounds shallow but the people who do well in this kind of sales tend to be above average in looks and those who do not have the looks tend to hide behind the phone and do telesales. This applies equally to men and women.

So you have the salesman who turns up for a sales presentation in a designer suit, looking confident and charming and before he even opens his mouth to say hello, he already has your attention and probably your business. But of course, you need to be articulate and able to deliver your sales presentation to difficult clients and hold your nerve under stress, like an actor on stage. Selling is not about sending emails to clients and hoping they will respond and buy after they've read your email. Selling is all about pitching the client and you need to be able to be eloquent in your language - that means being able to speak for at least ten minutes without even once hesitating by making a pause in the middle of a sentence, or making an awkward sound like 'err...' or 'aah'. The worst mistakes are those who use meaningless 'filler words' like 'I mean', 'you know' and 'like' - that means that they have no idea what to say next but rubbish words just keep spilling out of their mouths and they don't even have the common sense to shut up and think. It is utterly painful to listen to someone who simply isn't articulate try to explain a product - public speaking is an art and some people just aren't very good at it.

"Our plan is to create a new website by ah... the end of the month, so as to, you know... like, to attract more people to, you know... the company's products. I mean, our website is like, you see, a great opportunity for us... erm... to ... you know, reach people, like customers... you know, who cannot come to our shop to, you know, erm... buy stuff, like, you know, face to face. And so, yeah... like, you know, this is all, like going to be... erm.. very exciting for us."

Q: What kind of qualifications do I need to work in sales?

A: None. You need to have some product knowledge and if it is a highly technical product, then a degree in a relevant field would be advantageous. But in most cases, a degree is not vital - after all, any degree will be so general and the bulk of the knowledge necessary to sell the product is very specific, so the vast majority of what you need to know will be leant on the job. If you do speak several languages, that would allow you to sell into different countries, dealing with clients who do not speak English. The key ingredient you need is charm - and there isn't a degree in that at any university!

Are you more charming than everyone else? Then you ought to work in sales.

Q: Does that mean that I don't need a degree to work in sales?

A: Yes. It is one of the few jobs around where this is especially true. Even if sales people have degrees, usually it is completely irrelevant to what they do. There is a lot to learn and you learn this on the job, not at university. It is one of the professions where there isn't this snobbery associated with having good degrees from top universities, because you simply prove yourself with your sales figures.

Q: What are the worst aspects of working in sales? 

A: The stress primarily. This comes from a combination of working in a highly competitie environment and the uncertainty of deals that may or may not materialize. I observed quite a lot of heavy drinking and other unhealthy activities from smoking to binge eating that people turn to when stressed. It is common for sales people to burn out after some years because of the high stress environment - they then either move into management or into something related like marketing; or they put their talents to something else altogether. Most of the people who work in sales are under 30 - it is a profession dominated by young people hungry for money and are willing to work very hard.

Q: What are the best aspects then? 

A: The money. It is easy to get rich quick once you are in the right place at the right time. Once you get your hands on a product that is in demand and you can sell, oooh boy. That was when work became fun because you were making so much money from selling.